Brizard To Call Parents Personally To Remind Them Of First Day Of School

CHICAGO (CBS) — If you’re the parent of a Chicago Public Schools student, you might just get a personal call from executive officer Jean-Claude Brizard.

On Tuesday morning, Brizard will personally call CPS parents to remind them when school starts.

The date is Aug. 13 for early start schools, and Sept. 4 for regular starters.

Brizard will be manning the phone bank from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. Tuesday.

For a while, it had appeared likely that the CPS school year might not start on time. The Chicago Teachers Union voted to authorize a strike, and both CPS and the union rejected a fact-finder’s report that was supposed to resolve salary issues that have been a sticking point.

In order to avoid having teachers working a school day that is 20 percent longer than now, the school district agreed to hire 477 new teachers to handle the extra programs included in the longer school day, according to Chicago Board of Education President David Vitale.